The Jungle Book Trivia
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This Jungle Book trivia quiz has 139 free questions with answers and covers every version of the story worth arguing about. There are questions on Rudyard Kipling's 1894 book and its sequel, from Mowgli's wolf pack and the Cold Lairs to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and the White Seal, and on the Vermont house where Kipling wrote it all. Then it moves through the films: the Korda brothers' 1942 Technicolor adventure with Sabu, Walt Disney's 1967 animated classic and its voice cast, songs and box-office records, the 1994 live-action film, Jon Favreau's 2016 remake, Andy Serkis's Mowgli, The Jungle Book 2 and the aviation spin-off TaleSpin. It starts gently enough for anyone who has hummed along to Baloo, and works up to production stories, casting near-misses and Kipling details that will separate casual fans from the true jungle experts. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries and primary references before publishing, so you can trust the results when you share your score.
30 of 139 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Walt Disney died during The Jungle Book's production; which animated feature did his studio release next?
The Aristocats
The Aristocats (1970) was a story Walt had bought and approved himself, yet after his death its director rewrote the plot Walt had signed off.
Q 02In Kipling's Jungle Book stories, what kind of snake is Kaa?
Indian python
Indian python Kaa is Mowgli's friend and rescuer in Kipling's books; it was Disney's films that turned him into a would-be predator.
Q 03Who voiced Baloo in Disney's 2016 live-action Jungle Book?
Bill Murray
Bill Murray's distinctive lifted eyebrow was even worked into Baloo's face, so audiences could see the actor in the bear.
Q 04Which actor voiced Shere Khan in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?
Idris Elba
Idris Elba's Shere Khan shows his power as he walks because the film's artists wrote new software to simulate the animals' muscles and skin.
Q 05Who voiced Kaa, rewritten as a female snake, in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson got the part because the director felt the 1967 film was too male-heavy, so the snake became a woman.
Q 06Who voiced King Louie in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken sings the ape's big number himself, and the effects artists worked the actor's own facial lines and wrinkles into the creature.
Q 07In Kipling's stories, Mowgli's name is said to mean which animal, because of his lack of fur?
Frog
Frog is what Mother Wolf calls the hairless baby, yet Kipling later admitted he made 'Mowgli' up and that it means frog in no language he knew.
Q 08Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, hero of one of The Jungle Book's non-Mowgli stories, is what kind of animal?
Mongoose
Mongoose Rikki-tikki is named for his chattering war cry, and he defends an English family in India from a pair of cobras.
Q 09Who directed Disney's 2016 live-action remake of The Jungle Book?
Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau had some of the animals built 150 percent larger than life, so the jungle would feel the way a big world feels to a child.
Q 10Kipling wrote The Jungle Book while living in which US state?
Vermont
Vermont was home to his American wife's family; Arthur Conan Doyle visited the house Kipling built there and gave him a golf lesson.
Q 11In Disney's 1967 Jungle Book film, King Louie is what kind of ape?
Orangutan
Orangutan Louie was Disney's invention, not Kipling's, and since no orangutans live in India the 2016 remake turned him into an ape species long extinct.
Q 12Which bandleader and comedian voiced Baloo in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book film?
Phil Harris
Phil Harris nearly turned the part down after a test recording, then improvised many of Baloo's lines once he was told to just be himself.
Q 13Scout packs for younger children traditionally call their leader by the name of which Jungle Book wolf?
Akela
Akela, whose name means 'alone', leads the wolf pack in the stories, and many Cub packs still open their meetings by greeting their own Akela with the Grand Howl.
Q 21Who voiced Bagheera in Disney's 2016 Jungle Book film?
Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley's Bagheera is the panther who finds the orphaned baby and gives him to the wolves, then sets out to guide him to the man-village once the tiger wants him dead.
Q 22Which jazz legend did Disney first consider to voice the ape king of the 1967 Jungle Book?
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong was the first idea, but a writer warned that casting a Black star as an ape would be 'politically terrible', so the studio looked elsewhere.
Q 23Disney's artists deliberately drew Shere Khan in the 1967 Jungle Book to resemble whom?
George Sanders, his voice
Q 14Which child star voiced Mowgli in The Jungle Book 2 (2003)?
Haley Joel Osment
Haley Joel Osment's Mowgli now lives in the man-village, but he misses the jungle and slips back to it with his old friend Baloo.
Q 15Warner Bros. sold Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) to which service before release?
Netflix
Netflix bought the finished film in 2018 after Disney's remake won the race to cinemas, sparing it a wide cinema release in the shadow of that hit.
Q 16Baloo, the bear who teaches Mowgli in Kipling's Jungle Book, is usually identified as which species?
Sloth bear
Sloth bear is the usual reading, though Kipling himself describes Baloo simply as 'the sleepy brown bear' who eats only nuts, roots and honey.
Q 17The four vultures in Disney's 1967 Jungle Book were designed to resemble which band?
The Beatles
The Beatles were meant to voice the vultures and sing a quartet written for them, but the band said no, so only the mop-tops and Liverpool accents stayed.
Q 18In Disney's 1967 Jungle Book, how does Mowgli finally drive off Shere Khan?
Ties a burning branch to his tail
Ties a burning branch to his tail while the tiger is mauling Baloo: Shere Khan bolts in terror, and Baloo, mourned as dead, turns out to be alive.
Q 19In which Indian city was Rudyard Kipling born?
Bombay
Bombay was home only in his earliest years: his parents then sent him to board in a foster home in England, where he was ill treated.
Q 20Which Indian-born actor played Mowgli in the 1942 Technicolor Jungle Book?
Sabu
Sabu, an orphaned stable boy in the service of the Maharajah of Mysore, was spotted by film-maker Robert Flaherty and became a star in Britain and Hollywood.
George Sanders, his voice actor, gave the tiger his looks, while the movements were copied from live-action big cats in two earlier Disney productions.
Q 24Sterling Holloway, the voice of Kaa in 1967, was also Disney's original voice of which character?
Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh first spoke in Holloway's raspy tenor in 1966, and a year later the same childlike voice belonged to a snake hypnotising Mowgli in order to eat him.
Q 25The 1967 Jungle Book premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre doubled as a fundraiser for what?
The Los Angeles Zoo
The Los Angeles Zoo had opened only the year before, and its gala came ten months after Walt Disney's death, so the last animated feature he supervised premiered without him.
Q 26Disney's 1967 Jungle Book has sold more cinema tickets than any other film in which country?
Germany
Germany had bought 27.3 million tickets by 2016, helped by Heinrich Riethmüller's freewheeling German dub, which rewrote the songs in slang and dialect.
Q 27In Kipling's stories, why is Shere Khan nicknamed 'Lungri'?
He was born with a crippled leg
He was born with a crippled leg: 'Lungri' means the Lame One, a name his own mother gave him, and it is why he hunts cattle instead of wild game.
Q 28What did Walt Disney tell writer Larry Clemmons when handing him a copy of Kipling's book?
Not to read it
Not to read it, Walt said: the first, book-faithful treatment had come out too dark, so the new team kept its characters and made a lighter film.
Q 29What is unusual about the animals in Disney's 1994 live-action Jungle Book?
They do not talk
They do not talk or sing: Disney used dozens of real trained animals, from tigers and wolves to bears and elephants, and left the talking to the humans.
Q 30Who played the adult Mowgli in Disney's 1994 live-action Jungle Book?
Jason Scott Lee
Jason Scott Lee was called 'too old' by Disney executives until the director argued that an unknown teenager would be far less believable as a leading man.